LEXICAL COMPLEXITY ANALYZER (LCA) TERMS OF SERVICE

Overview

Lexical Complexity Analyzer (“LCA”) is a tool that allows language teachers and researchers to analyze the lexical complexity of written English language samples. LCA was developed by Xiaofei Lu at The Pennsylvania State University (“PSU”), University Park, PA, USA. Unless stated otherwise, these Terms of Service apply to all usage of LCA, including those currently offered as well as any new products or services that we may add in the future.

General Terms of Service and Restrictions on Use of Materials

You may access and use LCA for non-commercial, educational purposes only. By accessing or otherwise using LCA, you are acknowledging and agreeing that you have read, understand, and agree to be legally bound and to abide by these Terms of Service, just as if you had signed a written agreement. If you do not comply with the Terms of Service at any time, PSU reserves the right to terminate your access to all or some of LCA. PSU may discontinue or alter any aspect of LCA, including, but not limited to, (i) restricting the time LCA is available, (ii) restricting the amount of use permitted, and (iii) restricting or terminating any user's right to LCA, at PSU’s sole discretion and without prior notice or liability. You are responsible for all internet or network charges associated with connecting to the LCA system, including, as applicable, any network or internet charges from your Internet Service Provider. You are also responsible for obtaining or providing all access lines, telephone and computer equipment (including modem), or other device, necessary to access LCA.

Community Standards and Conduct

You acknowledge that all content, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is the sole responsibility of the person from which such content originated. This means that you are entirely responsible for all content that you post, upload or otherwise transmit via access to LCA. Under no circumstances will PSU be liable in any way for any content, including, but not limited to, for any errors or omissions in any content, or for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any content posted, uploaded or otherwise transmitted via LCA.

impersonate any person or entity or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity;

forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any Content transmitted to LCA;

upload, post, or otherwise transmit any Content that you do not have a right to transmit under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (such as insider information, proprietary and confidential information learned or disclosed as part of employment relationships or under nondisclosure agreements);

upload, post, or otherwise transmit any Content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party;

upload, post, or otherwise transmit any material that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;

interfere with or disrupt LCA or any servers or networks connected to or utilized by LCA, or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks or third party providers connected to, or providing LCA;

intentionally or unintentionally violate any applicable local, state, national or international law; or

collect or store personal data about other users, members, or third parties.

DISCLAIMER

PSU and its service providers utilize diligent efforts to maintain LCA, but PSU and its service providers are not responsible for any defects or failures associated with LCA, or any damages (such as lost profits or other consequential damages) that may result from any such defects or failures.

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS OF WARRANTIES:

LCA IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, AND YOU USE LCA AT YOUR SOLE RISK. PSU EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

WITHOUT LIMITATION, PSU MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT LCA WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, THAT ACCESS WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, THAT THE RESULTS OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF LCA WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE, OR THAT THE QUALITY OF ANY SERVICES, INFORMATION, OR OTHER MATERIAL OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF LCA WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS.

ANY MATERIAL DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF LCA IS DONE AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOAD OF ANY SUCH MATERIAL.

FURTHER, PLEASE NOTE THAT NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM PSU PERSONNEL OR THROUGH YOUR USE OF LCA SHALL CREATE ANY REPRESENTATION, WARRANTY OR GUARANTY NOT EXPRESSLY PROVIDED FOR IN THESE TERMS OF SERVICE.

Limitation of Liability

YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT PSU SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, GOODWILL, USE, DATA OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES (EVEN IF PSU HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES), RESULTING FROM: (I) THE USE OR THE INABILITY TO USE LCA; (II) THE COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS AND SERVICES; (III) UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OR ALTERATION OF YOUR TRANSMISSIONS OR DATA; or, (IV) ANY OTHER MATTER RELATING TO YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF LCA. IN NO EVENT SHALL PSU’S TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL DAMAGES, LOSSES, AND CAUSES OF ACTION (WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, NEGLIGENCE), OR OTHERWISE) EXCEED THE AMOUNT PAID BY YOU, IF ANY, FOR ACCESSING THE EXCITE SITE.

SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF CERTAIN WARRANTIES OR THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. ACCORDINGLY, SOME OF THE ABOVE LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

Indemnification

YOU AGREE TO INDEMNIFY, DEFEND AND HOLD HARMLESS PSU, ITS PARENTS, AFFILIATES AND SUBSIDIARY COMPANIES, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, CONSULTANTS AND AGENTS FROM ANY AND ALL THIRD PARTY CLAIMS, LIABILITY, DAMAGES AND/OR COSTS (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ATTORNEYS FEES) ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF LCA, YOUR VIOLATION OF THESE TERMS OF SERVICE OR YOUR INFRINGEMENT, OR INFRINGEMENT BY ANY OTHER USER OF YOUR ACCOUNT, OF ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OR OTHER RIGHT OF ANY PERSON OR ENTITY. YOU AGREE TO IMMEDIATELY NOTIFY PSU OF ANY BREACH OF SECURITY KNOWN TO YOU.

Termination and modification

You agree that PSU, in its sole and absolute discretion, may terminate your use of LCA. PSU may also in its sole discretion and at any time discontinue providing LCA, or any part thereof, with or without notice. You agree that any termination of your access to LCA under any provision of this Terms of Service may be effected without prior notice. Further, you agree that PSU shall not be liable to you or any third-party for any termination of your access to LCA.

The provisions of these Terms of Service pertaining to disclaimers, exclusion of damages, limitations of liability and indemnification shall survive termination.

COPYRIGHT, COPYRIGHT NOTICES, PUBLICATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

You acknowledge that the LCA and its associated websites, content, user guides, manuals or other support files may contain information, software, photos, video, text, graphics, music, sounds or other material (collectively, "Content") that are protected by copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets or other proprietary rights, and that these rights are valid and protected in all forms, media and technologies existing now or hereafter developed. All PSU original Content and Content provided to PSU by its partners and licensors is copyrighted individually and/or as a collective work under the U.S. copyright laws; further, PSU owns a copyright in the selection, coordination, arrangement and enhancement of all Content and in LCA as a whole. The PSU name and logos are trademarks of PSU. PSU's partners may also have additional proprietary rights in any Content which they make available through LCA. You may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works, or in any way exploit, any of the Content, in whole or in part, except that you may download one copy of the materials on any single computer for your personal, non-commercial educational use only, provided you keep intact all copyright and other proprietary notices. Modification of the materials or use of the materials for any other purpose, including use of any such material on any other Web site or networked computer environment is strictly prohibited. In the event you download software provided by PSU, the software, including any files, images incorporated in or generated by the software, and data accompanying the software (collectively, the "Software") are licensed to you by PSU under any terms and conditions of use which are attached thereto. PSU does not transfer title to the Software to you. You may not redistribute, sell, export, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, or otherwise reduce the Software to a human-readable form.

LCA is the result of ongoing educational research and development at PSU. Any publication or presentation made by You where data was analyzed using the Lexical Complexity Analyzer should include the following citations:

Please cite:

Ai, Haiyang and Lu, Xiaofei (2010). A web-based system for automatic measurement of lexical complexity. Paper presented at the 27th Annual Symposium of the Computer-Assisted Language Consortium (CALICO-10). Amherst, MA. June 8-12.

Lu, Xiaofei (2012). The Relationship of Lexical Richness to the Quality of ESL Learners' Oral
Narratives. The Modern Language Journal, 96(2), 190-208.

Users are also invited to inform Professor Xiaofei Lu (mailto: xxl13@psu.edu) when they have published or presented work that used the Lexical Complexity Analyzer.

Governing Law and Other Miscellaneous Terms

These Terms of Service (and any further rules, policies or guidelines incorporated by reference herein) shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law. You agree that any action at law or in equity arising out of or relating to these terms shall be filed only in the state or federal courts located in Centre County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and you hereby consent and submit to the personal jurisdiction of such courts for the purposes of litigating any such action. If any provision of these terms shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from these terms and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions. This is the entire agreement between you and PSU relating to the subject matter herein and shall not be modified by you except in writing, signed by both parties. The Terms of Service will inure to the benefit of PSU’s successors, assigns and licensees.

These Terms of Service (and any further policies or documents incorporated by reference herein) constitute the entire understanding between PSU and users of LCA concerning the subject matter hereof and may not be modified except by revised Terms of Service posted by PSU. These Terms of Service, which may be modified or amended by PSU from time to time, in its sole discretion, supersedes all prior understandings and agreements, whether written or verbal with respect to the subject matter hereof. If any of the provisions of these Terms of Service will contravene, or be invalid under, the laws of the particular jurisdiction where performed, such contravention or invalidity will not invalidate the whole agreement, rather these Terms of Service will be construed as if not containing the particular provision or provisions held invalid, and the rights and obligations of the parties will be construed and enforced accordingly.

No failure or delay by PSU in exercising any right, power or privilege under these Terms of Service will operate as a waiver thereof, nor will any single or partial exercise of any right, power or privilege preclude any other or further exercise thereof or the exercise of any other right, power, or privilege under these Terms of Service.

The section titles in these Terms of Service are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect.

These Terms of Service are binding upon and shall ensure to the benefit of both parties and their respective successors, heirs, executor, administrators, personal representatives and permitted assigns. Users may not assign their rights or obligations hereunder without PSU’s prior written consent.